EGC Co-organized Event on the Sidelines of the World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings

EGC is collaborating with partners based in Washington D.C. to host a discussion focused on structural transformation, jobs, growth, and gender dynamics on the sidelines of the World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings, on Friday, April 25, 2025. We invite colleagues who will be at the Spring Meetings in D.C. to join us at this discussion. More information is available below, which will be updated as additional details are confirmed.

This event, organized by EGC in partnership with the Gates Foundation and the Center for Global Development, and hosted at the Gates Foundation’s Washington D.C. office, will present new research on gender, labor markets, structural transformation, and policy intervention in India, Mexico, and Morocco, bringing in additional insights from a set of studies across Sub-Saharan Africa. The session will address the following questions: how do gender gaps in labor market outcomes evolve with structural transformation as labor moves out of agriculture and into manufacturing and services? How can policy decisions avoid the downward-sloping section of the historic inverse-U relationship between female labor force participation and economic growth, and enable growth that matches talent to opportunity regardless of gender? What is the differential impact on women and men of digital transformation? How does migration out of agriculture into urban areas affect gendered outcomes in labor markets? What is the impact of a minimum wage policy intervention on the gender wage gap? The research that will be presented includes the following:

• Michael Peters, Pamela Torola, Lindsey Uniat & Fabrizio Zilibotti, From Rural Fields to Urban Kitchens: Structural Change and the Decline of Women's Work in India
• Maria Kogelnik, Rohini Pande, Charity Troyer-Moore and Akash Uppal, presenting early insights from field experiments in India designed to study preferences for power and paternalism, and whether these vary by gender and influence labor market decisions
• Gaurav Chiplunkar & Pinelopi Goldberg, presenting findings from a forthcoming working paper on the impact of the expansion of 3G in Mexico on gendered labor market outcomes
• Louise Paul-Delvaux, Minimum Wage, Informality, and Gender Gaps: Evidence from Morocco

A panel discussion will follow, focusing on the state of research and policy priorities on gender and the economy. This will include Oriana Bandiera (London School of Economics, joining virtually), Douglas Gollin (Tufts University), Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi (African Center for Economic Transformation), and Rohini Pande (Yale University).

If you have any questions about this event, please contact Jonathan Bower, Senior Research Manager at EGC, at jonathan.bower@yale.edu